Just To Clear The Air
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Family and Friendship Forever! Competition entry: James has always forgiven Sirius, no matter what. But this time, has Sirius gone too far?


"James?"

Sirius was far angrier than when he'd last seen his friend. His long hair seemed to almost sweat from the effort of running, and he was looking at the floor, ashamed.

He sat on a couch, where he could see James out of the corner of his eye without having to look him in the face. The room was otherwise empty. "I...I just did something really stupid. I hope you can forgive me, I don't know if I can face Moony right now."

James would forgive him, of course. He always forgave his friend, no matter what stupid thing Sirius had done. And, being James, he somehow came out on top anyway.

They'd fancied themselves the cleverest students of their day, cleverer even than the Ravenclaws who holed up in the library and got Outstanding O.W.L.s. Learning and studying and doing well in school was one thing, but doing really new and powerful innovative magic on one's own—even on _four's_ own—was quite another. They'd figured out how to do the Marauder's Map by bits and pieces—Sirius, remembering his old family tree, had learned how to enchant the names.

He'd also spilled an ink bottle all over the parchment one day when they were drawing up Astronomy star charts. While he had just rolled his eyes and tried Vanishing it, James had laughed it off and tried to draw the constellations from memory by wiping ink _away_ line by line. Sure enough, while drawing sketches freehand was tiresome, drawing pictures by picking up ink to flick at your friends was messier and much more fun. By the end of the day, James had been doodling enough to figure out how to display animations on the map, indicating how to open the secret passages.

Then there had been the time when Sirius wanted to fly above Hogwarts so they could check that the towers were correctly positioned on the map. Of course, for James the Quidditch player, that was no problem, but Sirius wanted to see for himself even though he wasn't that strong on a broom. They went anyway, and Sirius nervously swerved around the towers as he clenched his handle tighter and tried not to look down. But when he seemed to be losing his balance again, James rushed to try and counterbalance him.

Instead, James crashed into a window, breaking his arm and the pane of glass in the process.

Sirius felt miserable. James felt very little, after Madam Pomfrey gave him some Numbing Potion.

Being James, he didn't stay in bed _quite _as long as she demanded. While flying a broomstick with his normal grip was effectively impossible, the injury didn't prevent him from flying one-handedly once he'd figured out how to get his balance right. Even after he got better, he still showed off at practice, to the point where Captain Braybourne had him fill in as Seeker after Mabel Parsons came down with dragon pox. Though he went back to Chasing after that, he'd still play with a Snitch on occasion, just to show off.

"And it's all thanks to Sirius here I got the spot, really," he laughed. It was as if he'd never _considered_ holding a grudge.

As for the Animagus transformation itself...that was not supposed to be _new_ magic, per se. Yet somehow they only got there through a lot of missteps, most of which were not in the books they'd read on the subject. Part of the problem was their impatience with Peter—even in their regular Transfiguration classes, he was a little behind them, and Sirius was always more interested in showing Peter a new trick he'd learned than waiting for him to figure it out on his own.

One day in third year, Sirius had been trying to see if he could create tails. Not because he thought any of them would necessarily have them in their Animagus forms—just because prehensile tails would be nice and useful. He looked up the spell, and James volunteered to let Sirius practice on him rather than Peter, who had already sacrificed three and a half eyebrows to the cause.

As it turned out, the spell _did_ create a large protrusion from James' backside.

It was rather less than prehensile.

But James just laughed. He did ask Sirius to try and Transfigure him back, but only because they had class in a few minutes and he didn't want their professors to see what Sirius had been up to. "You can't go to detention without me, I'll be bored!" After a few tries of his own, James had perfected the mistaken spell, and was able to get Severus once. Granted, it was in full view of Professor Slughorn, so it was _James_ left in detention with _Sirius_ bored on the outside. James still claimed it was worth it.

When Sirius had left Grimmauld Place with nothing but his wand, the robes on his back, and his motorbike, he hadn't hesitated before heading for the Potter home. Of course, Mrs. Potter was there to welcome him, and James was ecstatic to be able to live with his friend for two more months of the year. Not until Sirius had gotten to Hogwarts and dug into too many house-elf dishes to count did he think about how much a shock it must have been, being told with no warning that you had to cook for four.

James had told him not to worry about it. Sirius kept trying, and failing, to write some kind of thank-you letter, but sixteen years of living in the House of Black had not instilled in him any expressions of gratitude except staring at the floorboards and murmuring his thanks. At least once Uncle Alphard sent him some gold, Sirius could buy a new Self-Stirring Cauldron for the Potters.

Of course, James got to use it to cook his own dinner with less effort.

And, yes, James had even forgiven Sirius for _that _prank. The one that almost cost them everything. And what had he done next? Become some kind of more mature person or something. It had taken the rest of the world a little longer to pick up on it, but Sirius, Remus, and Peter had known from the next morning that James was acting a little less like Sirius and a little more like Lupin.

Granted, Sirius wasn't entirely in favor of this. Sure, Lily Evans had begun to take James more seriously, but once they started dating James whined about her just as much and hung out with Sirius less. And sure, he'd become Head Boy, but what good did that do him, really? No, the side effects of maturity were nothing compared to having James' trust back.

At least until he risked that trust again.

"James," he stammered—better to be out with it and be done—"I may have—hypothetically speaking, of course...I mean, who am I kidding. I...I kind of was heading off Filch, so he wouldn't see where Peter'd gotten to, and he saw me looking at the Map, and, er, confiscated it."

"Sirius!" James exploded.

"Yeah," he said, quietly. "I mean I got it to blank first so he wouldn't see but—"

He broke off, uncertain what to say, but James just smiled. "It's all right. We have it memorized, anyway."


End file.
